Hi everyone! I hope you’re all well. Today is Wednesday, and it’s time for another post in the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge hosted by Long and Short Reviews. If you would like to participate in the challenge yourself, you can find the list of topics for 2026 here. If you’d like to read other people’s responses to this week’s topic, you can do so here.
Websites I Wish Still Existed
Open Diary
Open Diary was a great social networking space originally launched in 1998. It closed down in 2014 before being relaunched 4 years later. It has since closed down again, apparently, although I never used the relaunched version.
It was a place where you could write journal-like posts and share them with the world. I did have one that I updated regularly, but I much preferred reading other people’s. I’m nosey like that.
Ask Jeeves—just for the nostalgia.
Even today, with the domination of Google, I still think of “Ask Jeeves” whenever I’m searching for answers online. Ask Jeeves was one of the very first, if not the first, websites I visited at school or college, I can’t remember which.
MSN Groups
MSN groups were a great place to find your people. I was a member of loads of Buffy, Star Trek and Charmed groups on MSN and spent hours clicking and reading.
Obviously Myspace
MySpace was great at the time, because you could customise your profile with GIFs and music. I’d spend so much time farting about, trying to make my page look perfect.
AOL Chat rooms
In my early to late teens, I spent hours talking to people from all over the world in these chat rooms. There were spaces for just about every topic you could think of. I spent most of my time arguing with people who would cry about how liberal Star Trek had become… nothing’s changed.
Well, that’s me for week 26. Which websites do you all miss?
As ever, thank you for stopping by to read my words.
Until next time,
George
© 2026 GLT
Categories: life, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge
GEORGE L THOMAS 
I haven’t thought about Ask Jeeves in ages. It was such a fun search engine.
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Ahead of its time, really, since it was to work ‘intuitively’ with humans asking it questions the way we do each other. I am surprised no one has resurrected it with a chatgpt model.
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I never heard of OpenDiary, but was well familiar with all the rest. I also did yahoo chatrooms (via CheetahChat).
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I used Yahoo chat rooms too. I forgot about those!
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Do you remember when people would post ASCII art into the chatboxes?
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Yes! I always wondered how anyone had the time. 😊
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It’s funny how things were more organic, spontaneous and social… Then it all became an industry and lost its soul, in my opinion… Then again, I would say that cause I’m middle aged now 😛
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I remember almost all of these, George. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
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